Saturday, September 29, 2007

Heart Bypass Operations a Mistake?

The efficient circulation of people and goods are as vital to a city as is the circulation of blood in the body. Restrict the flow and the results are harmful. Yet there are people who vigorously oppose the building of new roads - they say new roads will just fill up with traffic. But that indicates a pentup demand - people do not just drive around for the fun of it. The anti-road advocates say that public transport should be developed instead. But public transport cannot do the job - look at any city around the world (with the possible exception of Hong Kong where people mostly live in bird cages).

To these head-in-the-sand obstructionists Wendell Cox says:

You read it first here. I have been advised that prestigious medical research is soon to be published suggesting that heart bypass operations no longer be performed.

The problem is that the bypass arteries simply create more blood flow, creating no relief for the old arteries. It is said that researchers were first alerted to the problem when they were exposed to the theory of "induced" traffic, whereby building new roads just creates more traffic.

It is expected that medical insurance companies will soon remove coverage for heart bypass operations, since as soon as the new arteries are made available, they fill up with blood.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Wendell is right about more congestion without more roads,and that public transport is not going to solve the problem.The view that building more roads will just fill up with more traffic is also true.50,000 extra people a year coming to Sydney is the root cause of both problems.The obvious solution -a population cap- isn't so obvious to our lightweight politicians,planners and profiteers of high density living.